Spectra (mathematical association)

Spectra is a professional association of LGBT mathematicians.

History

The association has its roots in meetups arranged at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) and a mailing list organized by Ron Buckmire.[1] The association's name was coined by Robert Bryant and Mike Hill and references the mathematical concept of a spectrum as well as the rainbow flag. Its first official activity was a panel at the 2015 JMM with the title "Out in Mathematics: LGBTQ Mathematicians in the Workplace."[2]

The Spectra board includes many prominent mathematicians, including Bryant, Buckmire, Moon Duchin, Doug Lind, and Emily Riehl.[3]

gollark: Anyway, I have, I think, reasonably strong "no genocide" ethics. But I don't know if, in a situation where everyone seemed implicitly/explicitly okay with helping with genocides, and where I feared that I would be punished if I either didn't help in some way or didn't appear supportive of helping, I would actually stick to this, since I don't think I've ever been in an environment with those sorts of pressures.
gollark: Maybe I should try arbitrarily increasing the confusion via recursion.
gollark: If people are randomly assigned (after initial mental development and such) to an environment where they're much more likely to do bad things, and one where they aren't, then it seems unreasonable to call people who are otherwise the same worse from being in the likely-to-do-bad-things environment.I suppose you could argue that how "good" you are is more about the change in probability between environments/the probability of a given real world environment being one which causes you to do bad things. But we can't check those with current technology.
gollark: I think you can think about it from a "veil of ignorance" angle too.
gollark: As far as I know, most moral standards are in favor of judging people by moral choices. Your environment is not entirely a choice.

References
  1. Farris, Frank A. (February–March 2019). "LGBT Math - Out of the Closet". MAA Focus: 38.
  2. Bryant, Robert; Buckmire, Ron; Khadjavi, Lily; Lind, Doug (June–July 2019). "The Origins of Spectra, an Organization for LGBT Mathematicians" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 66 (6): 875–882.
  3. "Spectra: The Association for LGBT Mathematicians". Retrieved 7 October 2019.



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